Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Marie arrived at her mother’s hospital room with her hair slightly damp from the rejuvenating-bath-that-wasn’t.

“Hi, Mom.”

Her mother’s gentle face lit up. It was like opening the window and leaning outside into the morning air. Marie fairly breathed her in.

“Darling! What a nice surprise!”

“Surprise? Didn’t Aleta tell you I was right behind her?”

“Who?”

Marie sighed.

“They’re giving you too many medications, Mom. Where is Aleta? Did she run to the restroom?”

The old woman reached out and grasped Marie’s fingers.

“I love when you come to visit, darling. Brightens up my day.”

“I love coming, too. So tell me how you’re feeling.”

Marie leaned back in her too-stiff hospital chair and listened to her mother chatter on about things like the life cycle of Painted Lady butterflies and who was doing who wrong on her latest soap opera. It killed her to hear this . . . this prattle, because this wasn’t who her mother was. Talk on international travel politics, sure. Discussions on feminism and empowerment and gun control and evolution and creationism, definitely. But who won a toaster oven on The Price Is Right? Simple things for a simple woman, which is who her mother had become. She wouldn’t be coming back, either. Marie could feel this deep in her bones, in some primal way that she sometimes knew when it was going to snow days in advance, or when her skin prickled and she knew danger was close.

Funny how these ancient knowings kicked up sometimes and not others. How they bubbled to the surface like swamp water when it wasn’t important, but when it was important, she never felt anything at all.

She kissed her mother’s cheek and her mother chirped in delight.

“What was that for, dear?”

“Just because. Mom, I’m starting to get worried about Aleta. Even if she’s taking her time, she should be back from the restroom by now.”

“But I told you. I haven’t seen her.”

That oh dear no feeling in her bones. It leached out of them like calcium and rode her bloodstream. It zipped through her system, turning on alarms and raising flags and causing her to inhale far too sharply.

“But the soup.”

Her mother gestured at the cafeteria tray by her bedside.

“Turkey and gravy today, dear. It’s Monday. It’s the only time I’ve ever looked forward to Mondays.”

Grim Marie became Worried Marie. No thermos of soup. No backpack at the foot of the bed. No red hoodie tossed over the chair or the bed’s railing or even balled up in the corner of the room.

She had never desired so badly to see something balled up in the corner of the room before.

“Aleta isn’t here,” she whispered, and her hair rose, her eyes dilated, her breath hitched.

“Of course not, darling. You look unwell. Shall I call the nurse?”

“She never made it.” Her skin crawled, blood froze, her heart stood still.

They were true. All of the clichés were true. The way her heart pounded, her mouth went dry, her blood boiled, her mind shut down when she saw her second husband hovering over her tiny, little, shivering Aleta so long ago.

“She never made it.”

She said it again, and then she was up and out. Retracing her steps, looking at the route on the street and bus with new eyes. Had she missed something before? Something small and insignificant, almost, except that it was so incredibly important. Some breadcrumbs she could fit together and follow home until she found her little little oh-so-little girl safe and sound and at home.

And then she found it. On the third bus stop, something so every day and mundane that she had stepped right over it the first time, her eyes full of useless tears of self-loathing and the stardust of seeing Aleta and Mother again.

There, in the gutter. The concrete gutter full of cigarette butts and shredded newspaper and stagnant water and old coffees tipped and tossed aside. Joining the mess was a splash of something familiar. Homemade chicken noodle soup with made-from-scratch noodles. Carrots diced almost-but-not-too finely. Celery and bay leaves and pieces of chicken, spilled from a thermos that had somehow fallen from a little girl’s hand.

Grim Marie, who was now Terrified Marie, looked left and right. At the buses and cars whizzing past her, at the people who walked by like they only had somewhere to be, not like somebody was feeling her universe grind to dust around her.

Marie opened her mouth, and a sound came out. She screamed and screamed and screamed.